The disclosure in the appendix of this patent disclosure of this patent document contains material to which a claim of copyright protection is made. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction of any one of the patent documents or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but reserves all other rights whatsoever.
The invention relates generally to the field of digital color management and, more particularly, to creating an abstract profile that digitally reproduces the color of an optically created image print on a digitally created print.
In traditional photography, photoprocessing labs have a printing apparatus that optically creates prints. Typically, the film is passed under a light source so that the light passes through the film and onto printing paper for printing the image on the film onto the paper. A color filter is placed in the path of the light source for permitting adjustment of the color balance of the prints by an operator. The operator may then use this color adjustment on all future prints.
In contrast, in creating prints digitally, color transforms are used to adjust the colors in the prints. A digital printing system typically uses a series of devices each having its own color space for producing a print. Essentially, a color transformation makes a series of translations between each color space of the devices used in the color reproduction process for producing accurate and predictable color. A transform may also be used to modify the colors for creating aesthetically pleasing prints.
Although the presently known and utilized systems are satisfactory, they are not without drawbacks. Currently, the digital and optical systems function independently so that adjustments made in an optical system are used only in the optical system and vice versa. It is desirable to have the optical adjustments to be incorporated into the digital process for efficiency in the producing images. This would eliminate duplicating the digital adjustment for which an optical adjustment has already been made.
Consequently, a need exists for improvements for overcoming the above-described drawbacks.
The present invention is directed to overcoming one or more of the problems set forth above. Briefly summarized, according to one aspect of the present invention, the invention resides in a method for including photographic calibration into digital color management having an abstract color transformation profile, the method comprising the steps of: (a) measuring a density from a patch of an optically created image; (b) inputting the measured densities to a computer workstation; (c) computing a density to colorimetry matrix that is received by the computer workstation; and (d) interpolating the matrix based on the inputted density for creating the abstract profile for ultimately permitting modification of an image manipulated by the abstract profile.
The above and other objects of the present invention will become more apparent when taken in conjunction with the following description and drawings wherein identical reference numerals have been used, where possible, to designate identical elements that are common to the figures.
The present invention has the advantage of digitally reproducing images having modifications initially performed on an optically created image.